Stupidity came off him like steam over coffee.
Around them — with York just inside the doors and the Kid over at the left, near the bar — the Victory was like a church without worshippers, that big, that quiet. The elaborate tin ceiling was home to kerosene-lamp chandeliers, while gold-and-black brocade rode the walls; the long, highly polished oak bar went on forever, with its mirrors and bottles of bourbon and rye, towels dangling for divesting mustaches of foam, an endless brass foot rail broken up by spittoons. No bartenders were visible — likely cowering down in back of their counter — and patrons were huddled under tables, shivering, brave cowboys and town folk alike.
The casino section of the place was empty, from roulette to wheel of fortune. One poker table had been abandoned mid-game. Several satin-clad darlings shivered under their own table down toward the end, near the little stage with its unattended upright piano.
Tulley was tucked back behind a wooden post, not far from where he’d come in off the alley. Shotgun high and ready.
As for the proprietress, the lovely dark-haired Rita Filley — a slender but shapely woman in her twenties, in the nicest satin gown in the house — she cowered for no man. She had positioned herself across the wide room from the bar, near the staircase. She looked irritated, her arms folded on the impressive shelf of her bosom.
Her eyes were hooded as they traveled to York, as if to say, About time! Or possibly, Will you please do something about this? He gave her the barest glance of reassurance.
McCurdy’s dark, wide-set eyes were already on him, cold, hard, yet there was nervousness around them, marbles in twitchy housings.
“You’re him, ain’t you?” McCurdy said. The voice was high pitched, squeaky, but alive with the kind of crazy that made people dead.
“I’m the sheriff,” York said.
“You’re Caleb York!”
“Sheriff York, yes. Can I help you, son? In a bit of a hurry. I have a Citizens Committee meeting to attend. They’re the folks who passed an ordinance against firing off handguns in a public place. But seeing as you’re just passing through, I can let that ride. If you ride.”
Fists swung at the air. “You killed a pal of mine!”
“Sorry to hear it. What was his name?”
“You wouldn’t even remember! His name wouldn’t mean nothin’ to the likes of you!”
“Try me.”
York hadn’t meant to call a bluff, but that was what he’d done, judging by how McCurdy couldn’t summon the name of the pal York had killed.
The Kid’s chin crinkled. “That’s what I mean to do, York — try you.”
And the boy planted his feet and faced the sheriff, a hand hovering above that cavalry .45.
“We have no score to settle, son.”
Holding his hands up mid-chest, palms out, York took a few steps toward the Kid.
York said, “Nobody has to die this afternoon. Ride out and tell everyone how you faced down Caleb York, and how the big man was afraid to fight you.”
“Are you afraid?”
“What do you think?” York sensed the Kid was about to go for the .45 and said, “Stop!”
The Kid did.
“This is a nice place,” York said conversationally, nodding around. “Everybody in town likes it, the Victory. Folks like yourself, passing through, find it a surprising palace for a bump in the road like Trinidad.”
The Kid’s forehead furrowed. “What the hell does that have to do with the price of beans?”
An easy shrug from the sheriff. “I don’t want to see this place shot up. I don’t want Miss Filley, the owner, to lose a mirror. Do you know how long it takes to get a new mirror in from Denver?”
“No.”
“I don’t, either, but I bet it’s a good while. And those hooch bottles along the counter, those don’t come cheap. And this fancy wallpaper, if it got tore up by bullets—”
“Damn it, York! What the hell—”
Hands still up, as if in surrender, York said, “Let’s step outside and do this in the street. Like the grown-ups. We’ll face each other, and I’ll even let you draw first.” He raised his voice. “Everyone hear that! If this doesn’t go my way, you’re to let this boy ride out. This is a fight I personally sanction.”
The Kid was grinning, but one eye had a tic going now.
York held open the door for the Kid, who edged over and, still facing the sheriff, slipped out on the wooden porch and went down the steps slow and careful and backward.
Tulley was at York’s side now, as the sheriff still held open a single batwing door.
“Ye can’t mean that, Sheriff,” Tulley whispered, squinting.
York smiled out at the Kid, nodding, almost friendly, and whispered back, “Of course not. If this doesn’t go my way, blow his head off his shoulders.”
Tulley said, “Be a pleasure.”
York, moving slow, almost casual, went down the steps. He might have been strolling out into the afternoon to enjoy the gentle breeze, but his eyes stayed tight on the Kid. This boy was dumb and foolhardy, and that was just the kind of person who wound up killing somebody like Caleb York.
York raised his hands again mid-chest, palms out, and approached the Kid.
“Okay, son. You position yourself down there by the Mercantile. I’ll stay right where I am.”
“Hell no! I’ll stay here, and you go down there.”
York shrugged. “Fine. Do I have your word you’ll let me get that far?”
“You got my damn word! I don’t mean to have it said I bushwhacked Caleb York.”
“Of course not,” York said, with that easy smile. “This will be a fair fight between two men of honor.”
The forehead on the roundish face squinched in thought, as if these words needed interpretation. “Right,” the Kid managed to say. “Fair fight. A duel. Like in olden times.”
“Like in olden times. We best shake on it.”
York held out his hand, and the boy immediately accepted it. Then York clasped hard and twisted harder. The bones breaking sounded like distant gunshots.
Then the Kid was on his knees and screaming at the sky.
York leaned down, plucked the big gun from the boy’s holster like a dandelion, and handed it to a grinning Tulley, who had come rattling down the steps when he saw what his boss was up to.
With a hand on Tulley’s shoulder, York said, “Go get Doc Miller. He’ll have to set that hand.” Then he crouched and faced the weeping would-be gunslinger. “We’ll get you fixed up, son.”
“You... you bastard!”
York shook his head. “That hand, though, it’ll never be the same. Unless you’re ambidextrous.”
“Ambi... ambi what?”
“Unless you can shoot just as well with your left hand.”
“ ’Course I can’t, you miserable son of a bitch.”
“Well, you can always go off and practice for six months or so. When you’re good enough as a southpaw, you come look me up, hear?”
The friendly tone seemed to confuse the Kid, who had no apparent sense of irony.
Then York gripped the boy’s shoulder, hard, hard enough to make him wince, despite the pain his broken hand was already providing. The eyes in the round bundle of tics that was Kid McCurdy’s face looked at York, whose smile disappeared into cold nothing.