“So you’d be all right with them staying around town for a few days?”
He frowned at her. “What makes you think they’re not just passin’ through?”
“I spoke to Yancy when they took a break about an hour ago to help themselves to our grub.”
She meant Yancy Cole, the house dealer, who right now was tossing cards to the Preacherman and his two followers, as well as to a cowboy and clerk. His back to York and Rita, Cole was a self-styled Southern gentleman right off a riverboat — white round-brimmed, black-banded hat, gray suit, ruffled shirt.
She leaned close. “They made inquiries about the big game Friday night. That same one you’re signed up for.”
The house was putting on a draw-poker tournament, with a one-hundred-dollar buy-in — three tables, six players to a table, and, eventually, only one winner, who would take home two thousand dollars. Entrants from as far away as Las Vegas and Clovis were on board. York indeed had put his name on the list of players, intending to leave his badge and gun behind.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure about the latter.
“All three signed up for the game?” he asked her.
She nodded. “The one with the toothless grin is Lafe Trammel. The pudgy one is Wilbur Landrum. And Hollis signed in using his own name. Preacherman doesn’t seem to be playin’ any games in town except poker.”
“Better have a chat with the fellas,” York said as he rose easily from the table.
Rita, still seated, said, “Try not to shoot too many customers, will you?”
York ignored that and ambled over to the poker table. As he went, eyes from all around the room followed him. He positioned himself just behind Cole, who gave him a backward glance and a smile as he shuffled. The Preacherman and his mangy choirboys were frowning at the newcomer.
“I’ll just take a moment of your time, gents,” York said, “since you’re between hands.”
Staying seated, the rabble on either side of Hollis scooted their chairs back and glared up at the sheriff. The Preacherman, though, stayed calm, his sky-blue eyes blinking lazily, his big rough hands linked prayerfully before him on the green felt. Chips piled on either side of the folded hands said he was doing well tonight. The idiots riding with him had skimpy stacks.
York said conversationally, “I understand you fellas are in town for the big game Friday night.”
“What of it?” Trammel demanded, his upper lip folded up over the row of yellow teeth missing their central pair.
Somewhat belatedly, porky Landrum blurted, “Yeah, what the hell business is it of yours?”
Hollis, however, said nothing. Something like the start of a smile was forming, however, in that dark, well-trimmed beard.
York said, “Well, I’m the sheriff, and it’s my business to protect this community. Mr. Hollis here has a name associated with homicidal violence. You two fellas seem to be ridin’ with him. So I’m gonna have to insist that after that game — sometime Saturday? — you three ride on.”
Trammel jumped to his feet. He was taller than York, which was saying something, but skinny and narrow shouldered. His hand wasn’t near his holstered weapon, worn low because of his long arms, but he came over slowly to face York, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring.
“You got a hell of a nerve,” Trammel yelled in a thin, raspy voice, “roustin’ us for no damn reason, York!”
So they knew who he was. No surprise.
Trammel said, “We ain’t done nothin’ but ride in peaceable and drop some money in this goddamn slop chute!”
The skinny cowpoke was standing close enough that York could smell the nasty bouquet of beer and cold cuts on the man’s breath.
“We could start,” York said, his tone friendly, “with our town ordinance against public profanity. But more pertinent is, if you cannot show gainful employment or cannot show that you have some particular legal purpose to be in our town... you have to move on.”
Trammel took a swing at York, who ducked under it and swung back, burying his left fist in his attacker’s belly, doubling him over. York put his right fist so hard into the pop-eyed fool’s face that its features seemed to collapse. Trammel backpedaled, blinking, trying to keep his balance, then bumped into the staircase post behind him, which startled him and sent him forward reflexively and right into another right hand courtesy of Caleb York.
The taller man went down like a pile of kindling, and every bit as conscious.
The cowboy and clerk who’d been sharing the table with the Hollis party had disappeared like mist. The dealer was shuffling cards lazily, while the porky Landrum was on his feet, but not doing anything about anything. Meanwhile, the Preacherman sat, angled to take in the action, arms folded, his expression mildly amused.
Suddenly Tulley was there, scrambling around the fallen varmint, bending over to collect the man’s gun, a .45, grinning up at his boss like the two of them had just defeated Santa Anna.
“Hey!” Landrum shouted at Tulley. “Give him his gun back! What are you doin’ takin’ that, you old fool!”
“This is my deputy,” York said, “Jonathan Tulley. Tomorrow either he or I will be at our office, at the livery stable end of town, and Mr. Trammel can collect his weapon. He’s lucky not to be spending the night in jail. Now sit down, Mr. Landrum, and maybe you can still play some cards, if your pal wakes up in the mood.”
So far Hollis hadn’t said anything.
But now York addressed him. “Mr. Hollis, as I said, you and your friends are welcome in Trinidad as entrants in the poker tournament. If you don’t have business in town after, I will expect you to head somewhere that you do.”
Hollis counted a handful of chips. Then, finally, he spoke, in a deep, resonant voice worthy of the circuit preacher he was said once to have been. “You hit my friend Lafe here so hard,” he said, without apparent malice, “you might have knocked his front teeth out if somebody hadn’t already beat you to it.”
York glanced down to where the slumbering Trammel was on his side, with a pool of bloody spittle on the wood floor beside his lips, a small yellow object, like a kernel of corn, floating in it
“I believe this time he may have lost one of his lowers,” York said. “Mr. Hollis, you understand my terms? Welcome till Saturday morning, and then you face my displeasure.”
“I do, sir. But might I add, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.’ Hebrews thirteen, two.”
“‘Woe to those who scheme iniquity,’” York said. “Somewhere in the Bible. Look it up.”
He tipped his hat to the Preacherman, then sent Tulley off to the jailhouse to lock up the confiscated handgun, after which he headed over to the table of free food.
Despite Trammel’s bad breath, York had built up an appetite.
Chapter Five
After supper, Willa and George Cullen — their houseguest, Burt O’Malley, riding alongside the buckboard on a borrowed horse — headed into Trinidad to pick up some supplies.
Normally, this kind of thing was done by sunlight, and, in fact, the sun was still around, though dying brilliantly over the mountains in a blaze of purple and orange. But Newt Harris of the Mercantile had asked her father to come in early evening and load up their considerable order of supplies so he might have a private word.
On the way, Papa grumbled about the imposition, complaining that this would likely be another attempt to make him see eye to eye with the rest of the Citizens Committee on the subject of the Las Vegas spur. She kept her opinions to herself, not yet letting the old man know she was, for once in her life, not on his side.
She did say, “Well, Mr. Harris has been a good friend for as long as I can remember. You owe him the courtesy of a listen, no matter what the subject.”