Finally the deputy remarked, “Doesn’t say they’s headed here.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“But they’s the brothers of that bastard Vint Rhomer, y’know.”
“Right.”
“Vint Rhomer what you shot and kilt with that very .44.”
“Right again.”
“So it might be they’s comin’ to wreak revenge on ye.”
“Might be.”
“Doesn’t say as much in that there wire, do it?”
“Nope. But last night somebody tipped me off that the Rhomers are headed here to settle up for what I did to their brother. And rumor is they’re being paid to do that, to boot. Lucky break for them.”
“‘Lucky break...’” Tulley’s chair screeched on the plank flooring as he pushed it back and almost leapt the distance between table and desk, where York was using a bore brush on the .44 barrel.
The deputy rested his weathered, stubby hands on the desk and leaned in. “Them five red-haired sons of a bitches is comin’ to kill you, and you just sits there?”
“I’m not just sitting here,” York said with a shrug. “I’m cleaning my gun.”
Tulley went back and got his chair and dragged it over to sit across from the sheriff. “You need to tell somebody about this.”
“I just did.”
“Who?”
“You. You’re my deputy. Remember?”
Tulley’s face squeezed itself like a fist does a piece of paper about to be discarded. “No, no, I mean go to that citizens bunch what hired you, that mayor and them mucky-mucks. Tell them you need to put together a welcomin’ committee of townfolk. Armed to the teeth!”
York shook his head. He was rubbing oil on the weapon with a soft cloth. “It’s not their problem. It’s mine.”
Tulley’s eyes were wild and his flaring nostrils were more suited to a rearing horse. “You ain’t thinkin’ this through, Sheriff. I know you are good with that dang thing, but five guns to one? Them is terrible odds! And if they does manage to cut down the great Caleb York, what do you suppose they’ll do to this town after? It’ll be a hellfire hoorah worse than any payday cowboys ever visited on poor ole Trinidad.”
“If I’m not here,” York said, with a small shrug, “then you’re right — they’ll have to step up and defend the town themselves. Long as I’m taking in breath, it’s my job.”
Tulley was on his feet now. “And there’s where you’re dead wrong... or, anyway, wrong. Best leave ‘dead’ out of it. It’s our job, Sheriff. Said it yourself — I’m your deputy. You didn’t give me that scattergun just to keep vermin out of the cell block. Referrin’ of course to the crawlin’ kind with tails and not the human kind, though plenty of them crawls, too.”
York’s eyes went from the gun he was cleaning to the deputy. “You want to back me up when the Rhomers come to town.”
“I do. I aim to.”
“And you know what breed of men these are. How lightly they take killing.”
Tulley grunted deep. “I heard about ’em. And I seen Luke Rhomer kill two men over to Ellis, one of ’em the sheriff. The only reason they ain’t hung the lot of them Rhomers is they leave precious few witnesses, and them that survives is scared to testify.”
York was smiling faintly. “And you’re still with me in this?”
“It’s what ye pay me for.”
“It’s what the city’s paying you for, Tulley.”
Tulley threw his hands up. “City, then. Say I’m doin’ it for the city and it has nothin’ to do with helpin’ out your sorry backside.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Tulley frowned. Blinked some. “Yes, like in... yes?”
“Yes, Deputy. But you won’t be standing at my side like Doc Holliday if I wind up facing them down. It’s back to the livery stable for you, Tulley.”
The old boy’s face bunched again. “My old job?”
York shook his head, snapping the .44 cylinder back in place. “No. This job. When that rabble rides into town, they’ll come right past you there. I’ll tell you what to do when the time comes. But you’ll be in a position to see when they get here, and then come up behind them.”
“You want me to backshoot ’em?”
“I don’t care where you shoot ’em. If they’re in this town to kill the sheriff, they don’t get to cry foul.”
Tulley almost glowed. Then he said, “When you’re through with that oil and cloth and brush, could I borry ’em? I probably oughter give that scattergun some lovin’ care.”
“Sure, Tulley,” York said with a grin, knowing the man hadn’t even fired it yet.
Around three that afternoon, York entered the Victory, where a few cowboys leaned at the bar, each with a foot on the brass rail; one table of poker was going.
Rita, in dark blue satin finery similar to what he’d helped her out of last night, was standing toward the back by a table where three of her girls were sitting, waiting to be wanted. The boss lady was chatting with them and didn’t see the sheriff at first; then one of the girls noticed him approaching and nudged her to look.
She came over quickly. “If you’re here to talk to Pearl—”
“I am. She’s had time enough to cry her eyes out and dope herself. Take me up there.”
She huffed a sigh. “I wish you’d come up the back stairs.”
“Why? Don’t you want your patrons to know the sheriff is a regular? Might make them feel protected.”
Her dark eyes were hard. “I just want to protect Pearl.”
“Then I’ll post a deputy or stick her in a jail cell.”
Her frown was edged with anger. “No. Don’t be a fool, Sheriff.”
“I try not to be.”
She was keeping her voice down. “I just mean... if you make a fuss over her, somebody may think she knows something.”
“I think she knows something. Take me up there.”
Reluctantly, Rita led him up the stairs at the rear of the saloon and onto the landing where half-a-dozen doors waited. Pearl was in the room at the far end over at left.
Rita knocked lightly and said, “I’m coming in, Pearl. Caleb York’s with me.”
The dance-hall queen waited for several seconds, to give the soiled dove the chance to make herself presentable, and then went in, York right after, shutting the door behind him. He’d been in this room once before, with Rita’s sister Lola, a fact he saw no profit in sharing with the woman.
But it might have been any of the other rooms up here, except for the two-room suite where Rita herself camped out. The garish red-and-black San Francisco-style wallpaper made the small space seem even smaller; there was just room enough for a brass bed with a bedside table that was home to a hurricane lamp, which was casting a jaundiced glow, and a small dresser with a porcelain basin and pitcher. Also a chair for a cowboy to take his boots off and put them back on.
Under the sheet on the brass bed, like bundles of sticks, the skinny brunette in the white undergarment was a damn mess — her hair a tangle, her still-vaguely-pretty face, minus the paint, revealed as pockmarked and sunken-cheeked, with the big blue eyes the only real survivor among the nice features she’d started out with. A laudanum bottle was on the bedside table near the lamp.
He pulled the chair over and sat at her bedside, as if visiting a patient in a hospital, and this wasn’t that different, was it? Rita, unhappy, stood at the door, her back to it, her arms folded.
“They killed my man, Sheriff,” she said. The voice was as thin as she was. “Somebody should do somethin’ about that.”