York said nothing. It was tough to talk after a blow to the belly like that. But he did find a smile, and so did Willa, before she joined Zachary and exited with him, arm in arm, following her blind father out.
York walked up to the livery, where Tulley was sitting on the anvil, smoking a cheroot that smelled only a trifle worse than the crapped-on straw in the stable behind him.
“Seen all kinds of folks head in the mercantile,” Tulley remarked. “You was about the last of ’em. Am I wrong sayin’ it looked like an indoors hangin’ about to commence?”
“It almost was. Any doubt I had about that bank president killing his chief cashier? Just rolled out of town like a tumbleweed.”
York filled his deputy in on the meeting, including Willa’s surprise announcement of her engagement to Zachary Gauge.
“That feller moves faster than a Texas twister,” Tulley said. “You trust him?”
“He stood up for me.”
“Tryin’ to look good, y’think?”
“Mebbe. Tulley, when it gets along about midnight, there’s scant chance the Rhomers will ride in. And if they do, doubtful they’ll be lookin’ for trouble, at that hour.”
Tulley nodded emphatically. “Gunfights in the dark ain’t good for nobody. I don’t think we’ll see them sidewinders till after sunup.”
“ ‘Sidewinders’?”
“Sidewinders. Them’s rattlers, and a word suited for the likes of the Rhomers.”
“I know what a ‘sidewinder’ is, Tulley. I just want to make you know your job isn’t ‘town character’ anymore. You’re a deputy now.”
“Well, this deputy could use some shut-eye.”
“Come midnight, camp out under that window over there.” York pointed toward the livery stable. “You hear anybody ride into town, wake up like a real rattler crawled up your pant leg.”
Tulley nodded. “You sleepin’ in the jailhouse tonight?”
“No. I made arrangements to bunk in over there.” He pointed to the nearest shanty of a pueblo in the barrio. “So you know what to do?”
“I know.”
“Once you’ve done it, scramble back in that livery and take cover. They could come after you.”
“They do, and we’ll have ’em in a squeeze, won’t we?”
“That’s the idea. One of the ideas, anyway.”
A big toothy grin blossomed in the white beard. “People gonna write about this, ain’t they? Ned Buntline and them dime-novel authors.”
“Yep. The trick is to be alive to read ’em.”
Tulley closed one eye and jabbed a finger at him. “You stay alive, too, Caleb York. I needs somebody to read ’em to me.”
York walked down to the Victory Saloon, where business was a little better tonight but still nothing to get excited over, and found Rita at the bar in conversation with Hub.
“A word?” York said to her.
In a red-and-black satin number, she shrugged and led him to a table in an empty area of the saloon. They both sat.
She said, “I hear the Citizens Committee tried to give you the boot. And you talked them out of it. I never took you for the slick type, Sheriff.”
He ignored that. “How’s Pearl doing?”
“Better today. I’m backing her off on her bottle of happiness. She’s talking about going back to work.”
“What kind of work?”
Rita smirked. “The kind you think. If I can wean her off that laudanum, I might be able to keep her on here, after I shut the brothel down. She’d be a right pretty girl with some meat on her, and if those dark bags under her eyes would pack up and leave.”
Hub brought his boss a Mule Skinner and York a beer.
York sipped the warm brew, then asked, “She have other special male friends, besides that bank clerk?”
“None that want to marry her. Several that saw her regular.”
“Would one of them be Gil Willart? Foreman out at the Circle G?”
Her glass froze halfway to her lips. “Why do you ask that?”
“Playin’ a hunch. You know Willart? Never mind Pearl — is he a regular here?”
A tiny shrug. “He comes in, time to time.”
“You know, I believe I’ve seen him in here myself. I might even put it stronger than ‘time to time.’ ”
A bigger shrug. “Put it however you like it, Sheriff. It surprise you, we got cowboys around here who are regulars? Who else did you think we catered to?”
He sipped beer. “Gil Willart was in Las Vegas for a couple days this week, on Circle G business.”
“Fascinating, the information you lawmen pick up.”
“Speakin’ of that, I received a wire today from the sheriff in Las Vegas, warning me the Rhomers are heading to Trinidad. Packing five bullets with my name on ’em. Knowin’ the Rhomers, all misspelled.”
Her expression was bored, or pretended to be. “Should I stop you when this starts having anything to do with me or the Victory?”
“Don’t bother. We’re almost there. What the sheriff in Las Vegas didn’t tell me was that the Rhomers are hired guns in this. That somebody paid them to take their vengeance out on me. Oh, that’s right — you told me, Rita.”
“Did I? I forget. I run at the mouth sometimes. Bad habit.”
Another sip of beer. “You wouldn’t tell me who told you, as I recall. I’m guessing it was Willart.”
She said nothing.
He grinned at her. “Think we just got there, didn’t we? The place where this starts to have somethin’ to do with you, Rita, and this place.”
She said nothing.
“It was Gil Willart who told you the Rhomers were coming after me. Because it was Gil Willart who hired them to do it.”
She winced as if he were being so stupid, it hurt. “Why would Gil hire somebody to kill you?”
“Because somebody told him to. That bank president, maybe. Now tell me this — why didn’t you want to say Gil was who told you? You’re not a priest. What’s betraying that kind of confidence to you, anyway?”
“Sheriff... Caleb...” She sighed and touched his hand. My God, her eyes were wet! “There’s some things you shouldn’t ask me. There’s some things I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Let me tell you something then — no ‘ask’ about it. That bank president, or some accomplice of his, murdered Pearl’s intended. And that bank clerk could be just the first, should there be other loose ends that need snipping. Are you one, Rita? Is Pearl?”
She drew her hand back. “Caleb. Please don’t.”
“I want to put her in a jail cell.”
“Pearl didn’t do anything!”
“I know she didn’t. I want to protect her. You should be in the cell next to her, and whether you did or didn’t do anything, I want to protect you, too.”
Those dark eyes were wet. “Why do you want to protect me?”
“Because I’m the sheriff.”
“Not the man who saw me in the glow of lamplight?”
“I’m him, too. We both want to protect you.”
She swallowed thickly. Sighed deep. Her lashes fluttered like tired butterflies.
Then she said, “He’s here right now.”
York sat up. “Who’s here right now?”
“Gil Willart.”
“What the hell...?”
“He was worried about Pearl. He’s one of her regulars, I told you. One of her... special men.”
York looked at her, disgusted. “You mean, he’s up there right now, bouncin’ on the bedsprings with that sick kid?”
“No, no, no. He cares about her. Truly cares. He just wanted to check on her, talk to her...”
York was out of his chair and halfway across the room in seconds. He started up the stairs and then, heading down them, came a cowboy in dusty chaps and a green-striped silk shirt and a hat so battered its original shape was a mystery. He was of medium size with an oversized mustache, and his squashed oval face was home to leathery skin and green eyes.