On a nearly upright wooden framework — almost certainly the undertaker’s own work — the coffin in progress rested as he nailed its pieces together. This was a strictly functional pine box, a world — a lifetime — away from the brass-fitted eternal beds in the window.
Perkins had not seen him step in, and York waited for a pause in the hammering before announcing himself.
“Adding some inventory, Mr. Perkins?”
A ghost of a smile flickered on the solemn face as he looked back at York. “There could be a need.”
“Because of the Preacherman and the two sinners he rides with?”
Another ghostly smile. “A possibility, wouldn’t you say?”
“No question.”
Perkins set down his hammer on a small battered table and came over to York, who was only a few paces into the workshop. “What brings you around, Sheriff? I don’t imagine you came to window-shop.”
“No. I’d be fine with one of these pine boxes. No need for anything fancy, considerin’ the destination.”
The slight yet muscular figure shrugged. “A man of practical considerations. But I’m pleased your attitude isn’t widely held. The more civilized men become, the more they want to go out in style.”
“I stopped by to tell you that you have a new customer. He’s over in Doc Miller’s surgery.”
“Ah,” he said solemnly. “Someone I know?”
This wasn’t as facetious as it might sound: few of the many cowhands on the surrounding spreads would be familiar to the undertaker, although everyone in the town proper would.
York told Perkins about Cullen’s passing, including that he believed it to be murder and why.
“And you,” the undertaker said, “are assuming those of us who challenged him last night regarding his wrongheaded views about the Santa Fe spur are key suspects. And that would include me.”
“It would.”
Another shrug, more elaborate this time. “I have no alibi. No wife or children, and I work here alone.”
York gestured to the covered funeral wagon. “And you also have a ready means of transportation.”
“Without horses,” Perkins said with a sly smile, “I most certainly do not. And if you haven’t checked at the livery already, you’ll find when you do that I haven’t rented any horses in some weeks. Will that suffice as an alibi, Sheriff?”
“Guess it will have to,” York said and took his leave, while the undertaker returned to his hammering.
After all, even a man as brave as Caleb York didn’t find much to like about hanging around an establishment like this.
Chapter Nine
Willa Cullen — in the same plaid shirt, jeans, and boots in which she’d found her dead father under a tree a few hours before — led her calico, Daisy, to the grooming stall in the horse barn. Daisy was good about not wandering away, but Willa tied the animal up, anyway.
The barn was cool but not cold, and she had it to herself — stable hand Lou Morgan was off exercising her papa’s buggy ponies, which didn’t get used every day. She supposed the stable smell would have put some females off, but she rather relished the unique aroma of various parts leather, hay, grain, manure, urine, mud, grass, wood, and tack polish.
She filled her mind with nothing but tending to her tri-colored pinto, white with black and brown spots, white mane, brown tail. A curry brush, moved in a circular manner, loosened up the dirt on Daisy’s coat, but the brush was too coarse for the animal’s face.
The loping jangle of spurs and the crunch of boots on hay announced the approach of unwanted company. The last thing she needed right now was sympathy or talk of what next. But she understood that wish was unrealistic, and smiled back at Whit Murphy, hoping it didn’t look forced.
“Morning, Whit,” she said. “It is still morning, isn’t it?”
The foreman, high-beamed Carlsbad hat in hand, came to a stop a respectful distance away and stood outside the stall, slumped, head hanging, his whole face, his whole body as droopy as his mustache. The work shirt, bandana, and shotgun chaps seemed to hang on him like laundry on a line.
“You needn’t trouble yourself with such work, time like this, Miss Willa. I can give Lou a holler. He’ll give that little pinto any attention she might crave.”
Willa smiled faintly as she continued brushing. “I’m not troubling myself, Whit. I’m keeping my mind off things. Keeping busy.”
He took a tentative step forward. “I just want you to know, Miss Willa, that iffen there’s any way I can help... anything a’tall I can do...”
People always said such things at times like this. But what could Whit Murphy do to help? What was there that anyone could do?
Still, she knew Whit wasn’t just another friendly acquaintance, trying to say the right thing — Whit had almost been like a son to her daddy. She and Papa couldn’t have run the ranch half as well without him after the rancher’s eyesight failed.
Nor was she unaware that the shy cowpoke was sweet on her.
“Just keep things runnin’ nice and smooth, Whit,” she told him. “The way Papa would want it.”
She used a dandy brush to remove dirt from Daisy’s coat in quick, short strokes in the direction of the hair, flicking off dirt from the calico’s coat. Daisy just stood there, basking in the attention, giving up not a whinny, just the occasional proud shake of the head.
When Whit spoke again, she was almost surprised he was still there.
He said, “Would you like me to ride into town, Miss Willa, and talk to Reverend Caldwell? Make arrangements and all?”
That almost irritated her. In what world did such things fall to a ranch foreman? But she knew he only wanted to help.
“No,” she said. “This afternoon I’ll ride in and see the reverend myself. Not looking to have a service at Missionary Baptist, just a graveside gathering.”
It would have to be soon. Undertaker Perkins did not have embalming available, like some Civil War — trained members of his trade. She shivered at the thought of her father being just so much meat that would soon spoil.
“Thank you, though, Whit. You’re kind.”
She smiled at him again and nodded in a way that tried to tell him nicely that this conversation was over. But he lingered, turning the hat in his hands like a wheel.
“Don’t you worry yourself none,” he told her. “I’ll keep the Bar-O runnin’ steady till, uh... till you get around to makin’ your mind up.”
She frowned at Daisy’s side, but any crossness was gone when she glanced back at the cowhand again. “Make it up about what, Whit?”
His head remained lowered, but his eyes gazed up at her, like those of a dog fearing a swat from its mistress. “Whether or not to sell the Santa Fe right of passage for that there branchline.”
She kept brushing. “You have an opinion?”
“Is it my place to?”
“You as much as anybody.”
His chin came off his chest. “I say stick with what your daddy wanted. You know what his wishes was. Otherwise the Santa Fe wins.”
Now she looked right at him. “It’s not a contest, is it?”
“No, ma’am, but the way I see it, it’s our way of life against theirs.”
“How so?”
“Well, like your papa said, it’d give the competition a leg up and turn little Trinidad into Sodom or Gomorrah.”