Willa served coffee, refilling cups, staying on the periphery as was expected of a female... but missing nothing.
Mayor Jasper Hardy, also the town barber and as such a well-groomed individual with slicked back hair and trimmed mustache, was saying, “My understanding is that this... this drifter is reluctant to give out his name. Could be he’s a wanted man.”
“Or a bounty hunter,” said slender, bug-eyed Clem Davis, who ran the apothecary, Adam’s apple making his bow tie bobble. “He knew those two, Stringer and Bradley, were wanted men, didn’t he?”
Clarence Mathers, fleshy and in his fifties, bald on top with compensating muttonchops, was a reluctant partner of the sheriff’s in the town hardware store. He said, “Could be anybody. Bounty hunter? Maybe. Former lawman? Possibly. Gunfighter? Surely. But just passing through.”
Her father was shaking his head, his hands flat on the table. “He isn’t just ‘anybody,’ Clarence. I’m telling you, my friend Parker sent him.”
“You have confirmation of this, George?”
“No.”
“Yet you’re saying this man is Banion?”
“Or someone as good or better than Banion.”
Mathers threw his hands up. “Then why in hell hasn’t he identified himself to you, George? Excuse the French, Miss Cullen.”
She smiled a little, but said nothing. She was making a round of filling coffee cups.
Her father was saying, “If he’s Banion — or some other professional gun that Parker sent in response to my instructions — he came to do a job. That didn’t require checking in with us. In fact, he could be protecting us by putting distance between himself and those who hired him.”
“You’re who hired him, George,” the mayor reminded her father. “We didn’t approve this enterprise. And if you’d brought it to us, I’d venture to say we would have voted it down.”
The old man shrugged. “Well, it was my decision, my choice... and my money.”
Wearing a humorless smile, banker Carter was shaking his head. “In any event, it’s a moot point. This couldn’t be Banion, or anyone else your friend might have sent.”
“And just why is that, Tom?”
The banker flipped over a hand. “Simple reality. Very unlikely that any man could have made it here so fast.”
The sightless host seemed to return his friend’s gaze. “Is that so? Railroad at Las Vegas is only twenty-five miles from here. Parker could have reached Banion by wire and the man could have made it here from, hell, as far away as five hundred miles.”
“What about those last twenty-five miles?”
“He’d been riding all night!”
Whit, smirking in doubt, said, “Mr. Cullen, what about his horse?”
Her father remained unfazed. “Maybe he bought it over at Las Vegas. Maybe he arranged to have a mount waitin’ for him. Could be he shipped it with him by train. Just like they ship cattle.”
The men around the table exchanged glances, weighing these possibilities.
No matter — her father had convinced himself. “By damn,” he said, “that must be it. He must be Banion.”
Hardware man Mathers said, “I still say, had that been the case, your man would contact you right away. He wouldn’t leave you in the dark.”
That remark, made to the blind man seated at the head of the table, had been unintentionally tactless enough to create a momentary lull in the conversation, though her father didn’t appear to have taken any offense. Instead, his face was taut with thought.
“Perhaps you have a point, Clarence,” her father said.
Willa set the coffeepot down with a small clunk that got everyone’s attention. She sat at the other end of the table and joined the meeting, weary of her servile role.
“Maybe,” she said, “he’d rather earn his money first.”
Perhaps faintly irritated that she’d joined the male confabulation, Cullen said, “He’s doing pretty well so far without any down payment, daughter.”
“Well, he didn’t take Gauge out or Rhomer, either,” Whit observed, vaguely disgusted. “And they was standin’ right there for the takin’.”
Willa’s eyes and nostrils flared, words exploding from her: “I’m beginning to think you good members of the Citizens Committee are all as bad as Harry Gauge! Hiring somebody to kill a man.”
There were protests to that remark, flustered reminders that only her father had done the hiring, but she spoke over them, saying, “You’re happy to have George Cullen take the lead and the blame, aren’t you?”
The hardware man said, “Miss Cullen, we’re between the proverbial rock and a hard place. When the sheriff took office, he bought interests in many of our businesses. You must know that. And maybe you know that it seemed a wise business move at the time. Gauge shared our tax burden, he provided new capital for expansion. Some of the newer businesses in Trinidad couldn’t have opened up at all without the sheriff’s backing and blessing.”
“And now,” she said, “he’s returned all the tax burden over to you, and is calling these investments ‘loans’ and demanding repayment while retaining his interest in your businesses.”
The Trinidad merchants wore glum expressions, several hanging their heads.
She went on: “Harry Gauge allows the cowboys from his spread, and for that matter ours and all the others, to come to town and shoot the place up every payday... because it’s good for business. Especially the Victory.”
Her father said, “What do you suggest we do, girl?”
Her voice was firm and clear. “Stand together. Stand up to Gauge and his men. You say you’re a concerned citizens group. Do something about it!”
That prompted hollow laughter and head shaking among their guests.
The mayor said, “Harry Gauge has a small army of gunhands, Miss Cullen. You know that.”
“He’s lost four of them in two days,” she reminded him. “The Bar-O boys took down Stringer and Bradley themselves. Papa, you came out on top because you outfought Gauge.”
“No, daughter. It was because I out thought them. But superior tactics can’t overcome strength of numbers.”
All around Willa were the faces of men tolerating her, not really taking her words into account. “Gentlemen... Papa... there has to be a better way to stop Harry Gauge than calling upon hired killers.”
Her father said nothing for several long seconds. Finally he said, “Best you stay out of it, Willa. This ain’t the kind of thing for a woman to decide.”
Flushed, she stood and left the table, but she didn’t leave the room. She went back to quietly refilling coffee cups. She wanted to hear anything these oh-so-wise city fathers had to say. So much in her life was riding on the decisions her father and his too-timid friends were making.
The mayor, smoothing his perfect, perfectly waxed mustache, said, “I think we should find out if this is indeed Wes Banion. I mean, none of us knows the man by sight, just reputation.”
The banker said, “Well, you’re the mayor, Jasper. Why don’t you approach him?”
“And if Sheriff Gauge sees me? Mr. Cullen... George... you sent for him. Isn’t it more appropriate that you make contact?”
The druggist said, “If George is seen talking to that gunfighter, by Gauge or any of his men, the only person to profit will be undertaker Perkins.”