Gauge smirked at his flunky. “What’s the difference, Lars, when it’s an ambush?”
Britt chuckled deep in his chest. “What’s the big fuss about Banion, anyway?”
“Are you kiddin’?” Manning said, wide-eyed. “He’s the man that killed Caleb York!”
“Yeah,” Britt said derisively. “Bushwhacked him!”
They went out, the taller man shaking his head.
Gauge leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers, glancing at the remaining deputy. “And after the dude? Cullen goes.”
Rhomer nodded, sipped some whiskey. “Damn troublemaker. Blind ol’ buzzard. He’s the leader. Get rid of him, rest’ll tuck tail and run. But what about that daughter of his?”
“What about her?”
The deputy risked a small smile. “She even suspects you’re responsible for her old man’s death, you won’t have a chance in hell with that one.”
Gauge gave an easy shrug. “We’ll just have to be more careful about how we handle Mr. Cullen. An elderly feller like that, blind in both eyes? He can go out a whole bunch of ‘accidental’ ways.”
The door came open with considerable force and Gil Willart, the foreman at Gauge’s main spread — a medium-sized man with an oversized mustache — burst in. He was still in his chaps with the dust of his work powdering them, as well as his blue-striped silk shirt with weave designed to keep the wind out. His olive-shaped, olive-color eyes were bloodshot in a leathery face.
“Boss,” he said, his deep voice gruff, “we got real trouble.”
“No kidding.”
The new arrival swept off his battered hat. “I’m not talkin’ about town trouble. I ain’t interested in them kind of problems, that’s your business. Cattle is mine.”
Gauge gestured to an open chair. “Sit down. Sit down. Pour yourself one.”
“I’ll sit, but I won’t drink.” The foreman sat down heavily where Britt had been. “Dee and me just came in off Swenson’s Running C.”
“What about it?”
The foreman sighed, shook his head, his upper teeth bared in what wasn’t exactly a smile. “Harry, I told you not to pick up that mangy spread...”
Gauge sat forward. “What the hell are you talking about, man?”
The dusty cowboy sighed again, shook his head again. “Half of those hundred and fifty head? Dead as hell. The others are in with our main herd, and if they spread that crap around, as they surely will, you won’t have a steer to your name to sell.”
Gauge was staring at the man as if he couldn’t bring him into focus. “Spread what around?”
“... The pox.”
It felt like the world had dropped out from under Gauge.
What the hell calamity next?
The sheriff was halfway out of his chair. “Damn it all to hell! How did this happen?”
“Just does sometimes,” the foreman said with a resigned shrug. “Happens every time you mix infected cows in with healthy ones.”
“You didn’t just discover it?”
He shook his head. “Been gradual, over the past three days. We just started spottin’ them, scattered around, buzzard food. At first, I didn’t think it was so bad. Just a kind of isolated thing. Few sick cows... now? It’s a damn epidemic. And people catch it, too, you know.”
Rhomer was sitting forward, squinting at Willart so hard, it was damn near comical. Gauge knew what that meant: his deputy was thinking.
“What is it, Vint?”
The deputy started to smile, but it was the way a man smiles who realizes he’s just been taken by a sharpie. “So that’s what Old Man Swenson was givin’ me the horselaugh about...”
Gauge slammed a fist on his desk and the whiskey bottle damn near spilled. “Explain!”
Rhomer said, “Old Swenson was over at the Victory a few nights ago. Liquored up to beat the band. Fallin’-down drunk, gigglin’ like a girl, laughin’ and guffawin’. At Lola’s request, I walk him out into the street and dump him in the alley, to sleep it off. He just looks up at me and says the joke is on you.”
“On you, Rhomer?”
“No, not me — on you, Gauge.”
Elbows on his desk, fists tight and going up and down, up and down, Gauge said, “That miserable, low-down chiseler... He must’ve known they was infected when he sold ’em to me!”
Rhomer said, “He’s been a holdout amongst the smaller ranchers for a good, long time, Harry. Explains why finally, after all this time, he was willin’ to do business.”
Upper lip curled back, Gauge said, “So he could stick me with a damn diseased herd... If I could get my hands on him...”
Rhomer said, “Probably long gone now.”
The foreman shook his head. “No, sir. One of the boys seen Swenson over by the stage relay station. Said he was just camped out near there with his horse... and a saddlebag full of bottles and bean cans.”
Gauge, almost to himself, said, “He’s waitin’ for the stage with the buyers. They’re due in, day after tomorrow.”
Because of their proximity to Las Vegas — the biggest cattle railhead in New Mexico — buyers would come to Trinidad to make advance offers on herds. They would offer a price slightly under market, but would take entire herds and take a chance on any losses of stock that might occur on the brief cattle drive to the train.
Rhomer said, “Why the hell is Swenson out waitin’ for the buyers? He don’t have anything to sell ’em! And he’s already got the money you give him, Harry. You’d think he’d light out.”
“It’s spite, Vint. Pure damn spite. He wants to get to those buyers and tell them my herd’s got the pox before they even talk to me.”
The foreman, an eyebrow arched, said, “Might be we still got time.”
Gauge was thinking, nodding. “It’ll be four days, anyway, before those other cows they’re mixed in with show any signs. They’ll be paid for by then. They’ll be loaded up and on those trains and on their way before it shows.”
Rhomer said, “Yeah, if Old Man Swenson don’t warn them buyers first.”
Gauge said, “Any suggestions, Vint?”
“Like maybe send somebody out to the Brentwood Junction relay station?” The deputy grinned. “You know, and just... discourage that old boy from talkin’.”
“Who says you ain’t smart?” He thought briefly, then asked Rhomer, “Was Maxwell over at the Victory?”
“He was. That was half an hour ago or more.”
“Well, if he still is, tell him I said ride out there tonight and see if Swenson has my money somewhere in those saddlebags, amongst the booze and beans. Believe I’m due a refund.”
Rhomer nodded, got to his feet, and was halfway out when the sheriff called to him.
“And, Vint? Tell Maxwell we want to make sure Mr. Swenson don’t misrepresent himself to no other innocent parties in business transactions in the future.”
“Already figured that out, Harry,” the deputy said through a nasty smile, and was gone.
Gauge poured himself some more whiskey. This was a problem, a real problem, one that made having a gunfighter in town pale by way of comparison. Cowpox making his herd unsalable was a huge threat to everything he’d worked for, all that he had planned.
But Harry Gauge prided himself on meeting problems head-on.
And he was confident both would be solved, and soon.
Chapter eight
When Willa rode into town around eight, in plaid shirt and Levi’s, Main Street was dark and deserted, the only light spilling from the windows and doors of the Victory. Moonlight helped, though, and she noticed a distinctive horse tied up in front of Harris Mercantile — dappled gray with a black mane.