She mulled it for a few moments. Then she said, “This is something Papa and I will need to discuss. At length.”
“Of course it is. But with your permission, I will start some paperwork. Is there a reliable lawyer in town?”
“Now, Mr. Gauge,” Willa said, cocking her head, “aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”
“We need to move quickly,” Zachary said. “I know enough about the cattle business to understand that by spring we need to be a well-oiled machine. If we’re to take our combined herd to market in the most fruitful way.”
“I don’t see any harm,” Papa said.
Zachary, like any good salesman, knew enough to assume the sale. He got to his feet. “I understand there are two lawyers in Trinidad. Do you have a preference? Or should we go to Las Vegas or Albuquerque for counsel?”
“Arlen Curtis is my legal man,” her father said.
“Then he’s good enough for me. I’ll have all the necessary documents for you to examine — deeds, land surveys, and so on.”
Her father was on his feet, beaming at the man, as if he could see him. “We look forward to receiving them, sir.”
Willa said, “I’ll walk you out, Mr. Gauge.”
She did that.
On the porch, with the door shut and her father well out of earshot, she said, “If you think I’m about to let you roll over us like a runaway stage—”
“I would be very foolish,” he said, a black Stetson in hand, “to even dream of putting anything shady past you. Your father is a good man, and I think in his day, he may have been a great one.”
“You’re not wrong.”
He gave her a smile with something puckish in it. “But I have no misconceptions about who runs this ranch, Miss Cullen.” His smile softened into the mere friendly. “I don’t suppose you’d allow me to call you ‘Willa’?”
“Please do. I would rather call you ‘Zachary’ than ‘Mr. Gauge,’ as you yourself already suggested.”
“I’m pleased to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I just don’t like the name ‘Gauge.’ Good afternoon, Zachary.”
And she went inside, leaving him to his Appaloosa.
Lem Rhomer was playing cards in the Silver Dollar Saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In Las Vegas, with its population of four thousand, a man in search of gambling, drink, and trollops had half-a-dozen choices, and the Silver Dollar was the worst and roughest of these. Here was where you were the most likely to be cheated, served rotgut, or contract the French disease.
Last month the first two of these unfortunate results had been Lem’s fate at the Silver Dollar. As for the French disease, the elder Rhomer boy — Lem was a ripe old forty — did business with no loose women without the protection of a tight lambskin.
But the crooked dealer at the Dollar’s poker table had taken Lem for a hundred dollars, and the rotgut proved so bad, he’d wound up puking in an alley and woke up there hours later rolled of what bankroll the dealer had left him, and with a blinding headache that lasted for three days.
Redheaded, wiry-bearded Lem was a big man, the biggest of the Rhomer boys, six foot one and with a muscular frame developed on their daddy’s farm in Missouri. On his own and sometimes with his brothers, he’d worked a few cattle drives but mostly found better ways to make a living. Hiring out his gun and robbing people and places, mostly.
The dealer at the Dollar was small and bald and mild with babyish features and a pair of eyeglasses that had a barely noticeable pink tinge to them. His suit was tan and his shirt ruffled. Over the course of an evening, he always came out ahead.
Lem had never got wise — hell, the house always had the advantage, right? — but the middle Rhomer brother, Luke, had gone around to the Dollar to check up on things, after Lem’s bad night there.
“He’s usin’ readers,” Luke reported back to his older brother.
“Marked cards? I suspected as much, but I looked ’em over careful. Didn’t see no marks or nicks.”
Luke, like all the Rhomer boys, had their father’s red hair — also his foul temper and cruel streak. “You can’t see the markin’ without special glasses. That’s what them pink spectacles do. They show him patterns on the back of the cards that your eyes can’t see.”
“Cheatin’ bastard! You think he’s on his own, or is the house crooked?”
“Oh,” Luke said, “it’s the house. Roulette wheel’s rigged, too. There’s a toe brake under the table. Every damn game of chance in that hole has about as much chance to it as a two-headed coin in a toss.”
Lem got himself in a tizzy. “I’ll get even. I swear I’ll get even. I’ll rip them beady eyes out of his face and then see what good them glasses do him.”
That made Luke grin. “Why not take the whole house down? That crooked dealer is just a cog. Why not rattle the whole damn wheel?”
Luke always did have ambition.
Lem said, “You gonna help?”
“Sure I’ll help. We’ll get all the brothers to help.”
Of course, one brother couldn’t take part — Vint, the second-to-the-oldest, who’d been Harry Gauge’s deputy in Trinidad. Vint had been gunned down, and not by just anybody — Caleb York himself.
Vint had been one rough apple. It would take a Caleb York to take Vint Rhomer down. The Rhomer brothers were proud of that. Of course, one of these days they would have to blow Caleb York’s brains out. But with the brothers scattered to the four winds, doing this and that, thieving around the Southwest alone and in pairs, it would take a regular family reunion to make getting even with Caleb York come true. If Vint by himself couldn’t handle the legendary York, they would have to band together for it.
And it did sound like a good time.
Who’d have guessed that the Silver Dollar in Las Vegas would provide the spark? That the tiny revenge the Dollar was due would spark the bigger revenge that son of a bitch York had coming?
Anyway, with his brothers spread around the Dollar, playing crooked games, romancing the painted ladies, Lem sat for a good hour gambling reckless with the cheat in the cheaters, letting the little coyote think he was fleecing this lamb for a second time. If the S.O.B. even recognized Lem from a few months before.
It was very damn quiet. Middle of the afternoon. Lem, Sam, Luke, Les, Eph, were half the customers. Real slow time at the Dollar. Three girls. One bartender. A manager back in his office. A roulette table, a craps table, neither with suckers right now. Two other players at the poker table.
While the little dealer in the pink eyeglasses was shuffling the cards, a cowboy with a lot of mustache said, like he was just making conversation, “You’re Lem Rhomer, ain’t you?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“Just a feller from Trinidad doin’ some business in the big city.”
The little man in the pink shades started dealing stud, five-card. Lem held up a hand to stop him.
“Gimme a minute, friend,” Lem said to the cheating bastard.
“Glad to oblige,” the cheating bastard said.
The cowboy full of mustache said, “I knew your brother. Fine feller, Vint. Too bad that York buzzard took him out like that.”
“Yeah,” Lem said. “Goddamn shame. I loved him like a brother. Uh... of course he was one.”
“You know,” the cowboy said, checking the hole card that was as far as the deal had got before Lem put it on hold, “that York was supposed to leave Trinidad. But then the bank got stuck up and the sheriff what took York’s place got hisself killed.”
“That right.”
“And York’s gonna hang awhile, around Trinidad, till that’s all sorted out. He’s already killed the three robbers.”
“Then why’s he sticking?”
The cowboy shrugged. “Lookin’ for the money, I guess. Funny thing, though.”