“Meaning what?”
“Meaning the assumption was that I would back up whatever position George Cullen took — which, of course, was against the spur. The other assumption was that I might bring Willa Cullen around to her father’s way of thinking, when certain locals knew she was otherwise leaning in favor of the spur. And what if Willa and I were to wed? I’d be the new man on the Bar-O, and where would that leave you and your plans? Removing me from the equation — and this, I believe, was your idea, because Prescott and the Santa Fe would likely stop short of murder — would put you, Uncle Burt, the prodigal returned, in an ideal position to agree with Willa and bring her father around.”
“What, and if he didn’t, then I’d murder him? Absurd.”
“It’s true I can’t, right now, anyway, think of how I’d prove that. Hell of it is, I was pretty much in favor of that branchline coming in myself. So all your efforts to have me removed were pointless. Anyway, I have an ace in the hole. An ugly, scruffy ace, but an ace, nonetheless.”
“And what would that be?”
“Not what, Burt. Who. Damnedest thing... You know who can read some? You’d never guess it. Lafe Trammel! He read that same telegram you did, and admitted that he was the one who put you and the Preacherman together. That you were the client, and I was the target.”
O’Malley’s grin was gone.
York went on. “So I guess, for now, I’ll just have to settle for attempted murder on your part. Much as I’d like to put your neck in a noose, I’ll have to settle for another nice long prison sentence. You know, New Mexico’s building its own prison now, and maybe you’ll be in line for a spanking new cell. Kind of fittingly, it’s in Santa Fe.”
The two men just sat there for a while, reflections of orange and blue flames lazily licking at their faces. Finally, O’Malley swung his face toward York, and his smile was back, and this time it was damn near satanic.
“See where you get with this fairy tale, York. You have a saddle tramp who’s dumber than a cactus, and I’ll have the Santa Fe Railroad and all its money and influence behind me.”
York shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ll claim you, not after the things you pulled in their name. When I met with Prescott, he was already backing away from you.”
“Is this true?”
The voice came from just behind York. Willa! She must have come in the back way, maybe after dropping off Daisy at the barn rather than hitching her out front.
O’Malley’s face, with the flame reflections dripping down, might have been made of melting wax. But his expression betrayed no anger or fear, rather... York tried to read it. Disappointment?
And a sudden realization came to York: what O’Malley had wanted all along was to regain his life here at the Bar-O, his place in this world. He probably had felt affection for George Cullen, and for Willa, too, a father-daughter feeling denied a man who had spent too much of his life in a prison cell.
Half out of his chair, O’Malley asked softly, “How much did you hear, child?”
“I heard everything from the moment the two of you sat down!”
“Surely, you don’t believe—”
She stalked over to him, her fists balled, her body quivering with rage. “I believe every word of it. Caleb York has the instincts not just of a friend of this family, but of a detective, and he—”
But then O’Malley was on his feet, and he grabbed her around the waist and swung the girl in front of him, facing York, a human shield.
York was on his feet, too, and his hand was inches away from the holstered .44 when O’Malley reached behind him and took down the old Sharps buffalo gun from its deer-hoof rack, then aimed it alongside Willa, its barrel a long accusatory finger pointed right at York.
“This is no decorative item,” O’Malley reminded him, grinning like a prisoner getting the best of a guard. “I know the old man kept it loaded.”
“There’s not enough of her for you to hide behind,” York said. “You put that gun down now, or I’ll put a bullet in you before you can use it. Just toss it on that chair!”
“No. You need a head shot, and I ain’t givin’ you one.”
And indeed O’Malley was ducked down enough for Willa to cover all but a sliver of his face.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” O’Malley said, his voice matter of fact and as cold as that day out there. “I’m walking your precious Willa to the door, and then she and I will go out together. When I get to my horse, I’ll let her go. I’m fond of her. I won’t kill her if I don’t have to.”
“You think you can get that far?”
Willa was breathing hard, her eyes and nostrils flaring.
“I do,” said the man with the rifle. “Because you’re going to unbuckle that gun belt and let it fall. Do it. Now!”
Grimacing, York undid the belt and let it drop to the floor with a nasty, clanking thud.
“Step out of it,” O’Malley instructed.
York did.
“Kick it away. Well away!”
York did that, too.
O’Malley started backing toward the door, with Willa still between him and the unarmed York, her captor’s arm up from around her waist and now across her breasts to grip a shoulder and better drag her.
“Now, just stay put, Sheriff York. You’ll have her back soon enough.”
York figured his best play was to let them get out the door, then to grab his gun and throw himself through the front window onto the porch. He was calculating how to get to his gun quickly and back again when Willa bit down hard on the hand of the arm at her shoulder and at the same time brought her right boot heel down on O’Malley’s right foot, like a child in a tantrum.
The big man yowled and let loose of her enough that she squirmed away and threw herself on the floor a good six feet from him. York went for the holstered gun on the floor, got it, came up with the chair he’d been in, which provided some cover, and then the world exploded.
O’Malley stood there with the barrel of the old 50–70 Gov’t Sharps peeled back like the skin of a banana, somehow still holding on to the thing, though his right arm and hand were a bloody mess, bone and scorched sinew showing, with flecks of black, sizzling powder spattering the man’s face, his mouth open in a silent scream, his eyes wide with pain and surprise. And in his chest were bright orange shards of blowback metal, like the petals of some terrible flower. And when he toppled and hit the floor facedown, those shards of metal were driven even deeper.
Willa was screaming, scrambling to her feet, then backing away, as York approached O’Malley’s body, knelt, and looked for a pulse in the man’s neck. None was to be found.
York got to his feet and went over and turned Willa away from the grotesque corpse.
Hugging him, she gazed up with wet eyes, her lips trembling. “What... what caused it to backfire?”
“I don’t know,” York admitted. “Must have been twenty years ago or more since your father loaded that weapon. Dirt clog, insect nest, black powder gone bad... Who can say? But a lot more backfired for Burt O’Malley today than just that old Sharps.”
Yet York could not help but wonder if in some way George Cullen had stepped in to settle things with his old partner.
Chapter Fifteen
The following Saturday afternoon at the Grange Hall — a recently built redbrick building that sat on its own half acre past the church on the road to the cemetery — almost everyone in town and many from the surrounding area were gathered for a meeting. News had gone out by way of the Enterprise newspaper, posted circulars, and word of mouth. For those few who had missed it, notices in every store window in Trinidad, all closed for the meeting, announced the event: TOWN MEETING — SANTA FE SPUR.